Cry of Silent Stars
by Helltanz98
Summary: Nearly 50000 years ago the Prothean's gave their final parting shot against the Reapers. In 2107 Humanity tested successfully the KF Drive, humanity begins colonization of the stars. 41 years later they discover their first instances of Alien technology.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Cry of Silent Stars

Helltanz's notes: Now before we begin, I will inform readers now flamers can shut the hell up ahead of time if you don't like it I'm not holding a gun to your head and making you read. Furthermore if you're being a grammar nazi that's all well and good, but if you are going to be one I expect proper grammar or I expect you to keep quiet.

Now I wish I hadn't had to say that but some punks have been quite a nuisance as of late. I do hope you enjoy the fic.

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Disclaimer: come on you should know the drill by now

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Summary: Nearly 50000 years ago the Prothean's gave their final parting shot against their enemy before being hunted to extinction. In 2107 Humanity tested successfully the Kearny Fuchida Drive, following this humanity begins colonization of the stars. Forty one years later they discovered the Prothean Ruins on Mars and other objects of extraterrestrial origin on the red planet. It is in 2157 the First Contact War begins. The year is 2183.

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Prologue

September 3, 2107

Four years after the Alliance, a rough multinational body comprised of eighteen nations with heavy interest in space travel, had approved the Deimos Project. What they were doing today was based on theories of professors Thomas Kearny and Takayoshi Fuchida. They were men who had been ridiculed for their theories nearly a hundred years ago, and now they were vindicated or were about to be.

At 12:00 Greenwich Mean Time on September 3, 2107, the Deimos test ship made its maiden voyage, jumping from Sol's Zenith jump point to the Nadir jump point in less than a minute. Humanity had acquired its first working form of Faster than Light, commonly abbreviated FtL, travel.

"A little off target, but intact...Kearny and Fuchida should have lived to see the day." The research team let out a whoop, and started to celebrate all of them rising from their seats .

An elderly man in a stiff military uniform nodded grimly, "Very good doctor, its time to get out there," At the cost of a trillion dollars there had been a lot of objection to this project, having to constantly travel to and fro to Mars's moon agitated certain members of the Alliance hierarchy.

It wasn't just the Alliance either who had bitched and moaned and kicked up shit, mused the old general, every third world control, bleeding heart, and luddite hippie had raised hell about how that money could be spent on aid money for third world countries or just not put in the space program at all. Of course those stupid luddites couldn't well raise a fuss at the facility directly with it on Mars.

Although it was called a ship, the prototype was really just the two hundred by ten meter drive core with a basic navigation program and data, and nothing else really. Little more than a needle, there was no bridge, no cargo, not even a fusion engine. More so the test ship had to be charged externally and towed into position.

The success of this project would lead to mankind colonizing the surrounding one hundred twenty light years over the next sixty years as the member nations funded the construction of their own colonization program.

These worlds would be colonized by the Alliance, a multinational body dominated by the west, which lead to some notably loud complaining but then again that was the majority of the alliance. As far as things went the Alliance was a military and economic alliance between the major nations of the West and other global powers. The major members of the Alliance were the states who had made up the EU, NATO, and the Commonwealth of Independent States, CIS, as well as a host of other nations.

The Alliance Trade Organization was the largest bloc in the world easily and effectively controlled the world economy, especially now that things like fossil fuels were a minor issue. It was thus the member nations and their populous ended up not really carrying what other nations thought, and this had shown as steadily foreign aid to non alliance nations had cut dramatically nose diving over the last fifty years, mostly this was due to anti alliance attitudes.

The Alliance Comprised more than fifty nations, and even with orbital habitats space in cities was at a premium, with the KF drive there was an opportunity for the Alliance. That kind of economic power the kind the alliance had would make the colonization funding easy enough in theory.

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2148

It had been forty one years since the KF drive as it was commonly abbreviated had first been tested. It had been forty years since the first interstellar jump, to Tau Ceti, had been done confirming the slower than light Magellan probes.

The Alliance hadn't been idle over those four decades every system in four jumps of earth, and area of one hundred twenty light years in every direction had been surveyed and colonies had been established. Humanity as a whole, including those of the Clan, had colonies across more than six hundred worlds

Major General Ashcroft looked over the report on his desk, cor blimey this was a ruddy clusterfuck, it was. He thought to himself. The white haired general reached for the bottle of good stuff he kept for emergencies, and this bloody well qualified.

The Mars Expedition had been one colossal fuck up, what was it with ruddy aliens and this damned planet. The general poured him a chaser fully straight of the over proof alcohol and contemplated the last few months.

The South Pole had a cache of alien artifacts in the southern polar region of Promethei Planum. The discovery of the artifacts had caused all kind of fuss, especially when it had brought the crazies out of the wood work, not to mention brought up the matter of Cro Magnon men being experimented on aliens, which really did bring all the nuts out of the wood work.

The general stared at the alcohol, worse still now they had gone and found another alien artifact, and the only good news to come out of it was the fact that the military was keeping it totally silent. There were plans of setting up a new military base around the area that would certainly discourage further digs, still it raised the question how many damned aliens were there out there and why had they been so interested in this ruddy red rock anyway.

He downed the whole chaser in a go, and immediately regretted it giving several deep hacks as the liquid ran down his throat. Damnation, he thought angrily reaching to wipe off alcohol he'd sprayed about while he'd been trying to cough out his lungs, this was why he didn't drink regularly.

Major General Thomas Ashcroft got to his feet a sour look plastered on his face after his shot of liquid courage and opened his door, well it was time to get this over with. A man in a black N7 uniform saluted, "Major Townes you have something for me?" He inquired of the young man.

"Yes sir the object is being tentatively designated Alien Star Ship 0," He announced handing over a data pad, "and it is a large craft, sir, techs are estimating multiple kilometers across." He responded, "also its at least older than the ruins we discovered, the Dr. LaSalle is saying this thing is multiple kilometers across?"  
Ashcroft really wanted to go back to get his alcohol, "Your saying its some kind of ship, and its been buried here on Mars for how many thousands of years? Ruddy hell, well go on then major get on with it."

"Ah yes sir," Townes continued, "Doctor LaSalle says its not simply a space ship but some kind of warship, and its some kind of bio organic armor, but given its size and the nature of it he wants a bigger research team."

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2157

"You want some you F*king bastard come and get it then," Captain Steward bellowed to the alien ship, "Mr. Ryan all ahead full take us forward! Those bastards do not get to the Thermopylae,"  
A younger man nodded, "Aye all available thrust," Responded the ensign, the Alliance Frigate accelerated dangerously as its massive fusion drives accelerated it forward towards the alien vessel.

The CIC of the Alliance Frigate was a mess and internal sensors were reading multiple hull damages, and with acceleration as it was the ship would tear itself apart in short order or rather it would have.

With a great and terrific crash Captain Steward's Frigate slammed into the Alien Warship, whose hull bent and snapped like a twig, and all went white.

It had been fifty years since the KF drive had been proven, and this was, publically at least, the first contact with an alien civilization, and they weren't friendly.

Admiral Charles Rheinhardt frowned, it had been forty nine years since humanity had started to spread across the stars. He had been selected as Major General Ashcroft's replacement with regards to Alien Space Ship 0 and the study of it. Work was slow, but Charles Rheinhardt could say with certainty this was not the bio ship's people, not for the least of which being the bio ship thought 'its kin were dead', as Ashcroft had put it one time.

Still it was possible they were Protheans the other Aliens who had had a base on Mars. Well in any event Humanity was now at war, these alien bastards were gonna pay for this mistake of theirs.

Eight years ago it had been discovered the Charon wasn't a moon at all but one of the Prothean's giant railguns, oh it wasn't a weapon though, no it was used to catapult ships across the galaxy. It was this discovery that had started the next wave of human exploration into the great unknown far beyond the one hundred twenty light year sphere of Alliance space.

The Protheans and the builders of Alien Space Ship 0 and hell other aliens had been useful in accelerating human development in more ways than one. Technology had been developed over the last decade humanity had studied the Prothean technology publically and the military had studied Alien Space Ship 0's technology quietly.

In the fifty years since the first KF drive had made its jump, in that half century humanity had spread across the stars establishing small colonies. Each of these colonies was within one to four KF jumps of a basic KF Drive making it fairly easy to render assistance and keep an eye on the colonies. All effort had gone into those colonies after Pathfinder had made its first round trip journey from Earth to New Earth.

After Pathfinder had made its first voyage a colonization program had been established post haste by the Alliance to build jumpships. The Alliance's main members, and its junior partners had worked together on the project, just like Deimos had been a joint effort and so had a number of other projects and endeavors in the past.

For the first time humanity's fleet or rather the Alliance Fleet had something other to do other than play war games with each other or the Clans, or just hunt down human pirates.

That was one issue, the Clans were a separate political entity from the Alliance. They ruled a thirty light year sphere meaning that they could drop their home guard fleet in the furthest reaches of their claimed territory at a moment's notice thanks to FtL communication. As far as things went though the Clans were on good terms with Earth, they were just more interested in being independent and acting out their survivalist and almost eugenic dreams of society.

The point was if the Clans found out about aliens and they would if they hadn't already the diplomatic corp and the Admiralty was going to ballistic trying to prevent the clans from driving headlong into the unknown.

The Mass Relay that Captain Steward and his fellow Alliance Ships had been travelling to was going to be seized, that was not in dispute. Whoever these Aliens were they were going to pay.

In the coming weeks an Alliance Battlegroup attacked Relay 314 and with the use of Swooping, a tactic utilizing the Mass Effect supplemented KF drives to jump on top of the enemy ship, no Turian warship survive. The next weeks would see human warships use the liberal use of nuclear weapons couple with the Swooping to destroy enemy ships.

Humanity had another agenda as well namely to learn more about their enemy so they deliberately took steps to salvage Turian technology whenever possible, or just the remains of ships. These remains would be towed back to Alliance space where they would be studied in depth and back engineered.

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The so called First Contact War lasted a little more than four months, and was the biggest bruising to the Turian Ego in their entire history. More than that the First Contact War was the first major conflict in nearly three hundred years to occur, and only the second in one thousand years, in Citadel Space this made it quite the big deal to the Citadel.

Both sides had been getting ready for a full war, but then the Citadel had gotten involved. Humanity had struck the Turians with overwhelming force exploiting the KF drive for all it was worth and using swooping to drop nukes and hit the Turians quickly. There had even been plans in place to start nuking the Turian's worlds if it came to that, this was possible due to the fact of captured Turian computers.

Admiral Kurita Shin, descendant Admiral Kurita Takeo, stood aboard the immense space station known as the Citadel today was a good day. The Turians had readily agreed to pay heavy reparations in order to make peace with the forces of Man. This was not that surprising given that the Clans had also joined the field with their Alliance cousins once the war had become official.

Shin crossed his arms over his chest, doing his best not to look too imperiously smug at the whole situation. Humanity had for the last half century colonized the worlds around it and in that time developed industry on these worlds, this massive industry made the human war machine a very dangerous foe and coupled with the KF drive which was unknown to the Citadel races made humanity a fearful monster in the dark.

For its part with the First Contact War over Humanity had learned more of the Galaxy at large, made contact with those governments, gained valuable sources of technology, and without effort extracted hefty reparations from the willing Turians. This was indeed a good day for the Alliance and humanity as a whole.

It was the first time in three hundred years that the Citadel Races had experienced a real conflict and the Turians had lost a great deal of 'Face'. For years the Turians had been known for the skill in military affairs and they had been handily beaten by an unknown race.

Admiral Kurita bowed from the hip, "The Alliance and our Clan brothers are pleased to accept the treaty offered up by the Citadel Council. We hope that such unfortunate misunderstandings not occur again, that would be most unpleasant." He stated.

The Clans had for the most part declined to attend though Clan Grey Wolf had sent a token representative, but that was it.

For years the First Contact War would have its effects on the races of the galaxy, there would be a number of cultural and political ramifications on all sides. Humanity would be seen as the aggressors by the galactic forum, and attitude of xenophobia would develop amongst swathes of mankind's population.

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2163 CE

Admiral Charles Rheinhardt looked over the report, beings of light, that was vague, and yet still enough to set off warning bells for everyone in the know. It had been fifteen years since humanity had discovered the various ruins on Mars, and they were still cataloguing stuff from the various aliens who had left ruins on the red planet.

Studies of Alien Space Ship 0 had progressed, even yielded useful stuff for the short term, though not near as much as the Prothean Ruins on Mars had. In any case the study of Alien Space Ship 0 remained classified, was likely to stay that way after they found out the thing was fucking sentient.

Beings of Light that was what that fat mole billionaire had said lead him to Klencory. That phrase was also what the ship had said their rivals had appeared to younger races as before the Unrelenting Horde had driven them all to extinction, or near enough to it.

In any event the Alliance High Command wasn't going to go after the weird mole, excuse was that it would tip the Citadel Races off. The Aliens were already annoying enough over the KF Drive, though the threat of saturation nuking anyone who attempted to steal the plans kept them in line. As it stood the Citadel had no method of stopping or defending against the KF Drive, and had no method of retaliating either and that was a useful card to play.

Of course it wasn't all hardline you piss us off we'll genocide you, far from it despite an initial bad start with the Turians things were getting better. The Turians weren't even that bad as far as things went, and with open dialogue positive relations were being formed.

The salvaged Turian technology from the First Contact War had been thoroughly studied and reverse engineered further boosting Humanity's understanding of sciences and allowing advances in other fields. Nobody told the Turians this of course, but their aggression against mankind had only made humanity stronger.

Relations with other Citadel Races were proceeding as humanity moved further into Citadel Space, or rather the Alliance did the Clans weren't doing much expanding right now, though they had mentioned something about expanding in a decade or so. Contact with the Asari was proving useful trade wise.

Even so Admiral Rheinhardt considered it potentially dangerous to leave the matter unattended, but orders were orders. For the time being the Volus Billionaire was to be left alone.

Here on Mars they would continue to study the strange and massive bio organic warship that was known as Alien Space Ship 0. After all over the last fifteen years more than a few advancements had come out of the craft or its onboard equipment.

Studies of the Alien Space Ship 0 would take some more time, but with the craft's cooperation they were getting somewhere. Amongst the more potent technologies that had been acquired from study the living warship was another form of artificial gravity, which was pretty useful

The base had expanded in the last fifteen years and now housed several research complexes each dedicated to study a number of the Alien Space Ship's technologies, and that was just on the surface. The base's underground facilities were even more in depth and built around the living warship.

So far reverse engineering their power source or offensive armaments hadn't gotten very far but stealth was something the Alliance was nearing a breakthrough on. The Alien Space Ship 0 carried fifty fighters each of which were very advanced, and seemed to powered by the same technology, and equipped with extremely advanced weapons. More than that the fighters had functioning stealth systems, and faster than light travel capabilities built in, this made them very interesting to the Alliance.

It wasn't just the fighters either the warship carried two smaller parasite craft in addition to those highly advanced fighters. Study of these other craft had only begun a few years ago so they weren't very far but at present given their size they were being studied underground.

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2170

Admiral Kurita Shin of the Alliance stood aboard the Citadel. It had been five years since the Alliance had established its Embassy and ten years since the Human Biotic program had been started.

Not everything had gone well these last few years. Humanity was not going to be pushed around, that much had been made clear, and was going to be very soon. Over the last few years the tensions with the Batarians had been increasing, and things were soon to come to a head.

It was time, or so was the thinking of the Alliance, that Humanity would not tolerate crimes against its people. The Citadel needed reminding of this, as was appearance, their sheltering of the Turian Criminal Saren was intolerable, and their attempt to levy sanctions for research undertaken by a rogue nearly as bad. The Batarians would be a useful example, a tool to remind the Citadel they were venerable to mankind's KF drive. All they, the Alliance, needed was for the Batarians to do something very stupid like fire the first shot, and then well then things would become unpleasant for a short period of time.

Kurita Shin believed it was necessary to make strong points from time to time, especially after the events regarding Dr. Qian's AI research. The Citadel Council still refused to hand over Saren Arterius, and perhaps they would not for a time, but eventually the Council would be reminded that humanity was not one of the docile pets of the Council like the Volus and Elcor, and then Saren would face justice.

This day however was not the day Saren would face justice, today was yet another day of biding time and waiting for the Batarians to make another mistake.

Humanity was due to the KF drive and the sixty three years of colonization of the surrounding light years of Earth a powerful new player in galactic politics and economics. This strength in economics was helped by appropriated technology from varying sources, such as the Turians and the Protheans.

The Prothean cache form Mars had been a matter of great debate on the Citadel, and a number of Citadel Races had hoped that Humanity might share the cache of well preserved technology, but that hope had been dashed following the Saren Incident in 2165 shortly after the Human embassy on the Citadel had been established. The Alliance had flat out refused and demanded Saren's head on a platter, quite literally. The failure to comply had had long lasting consequences, though the Asari and Turians had made nice and quickly backed away from attempts to force reparations, and the Turians had in a surprise move pressed for the limits of the Treaty of Farixen be eased for the Alliance Navy.

This backpedalling by the Council however had not won Humanity many favors with some of the other Citadel races who were not apart of the Council. The Elcor and the Hanar were the major exceptions. So far relations with the Elcor and the Hanar had proceeded smoothly, especially personal relations with the latter.

The Elcor were a slow patient race who traded in finished goods. The patience and generally benign nature of the elephantine race meant they had little interest in provoking humanity.

The Hanar were extremely interested in humanity, and the Protheans. The floating jellyfish seemed to regard humans as similar to themselves due to the Prothean interference with Cro Magnon humans. Unfortunately the Hanar had little in common with regards to humans in field of trade.

It was the Elcor with whom Humanity however was interested in specifically their military hardware. The Elcor did not use small arms but did produce extremely capable war machines and that was what humanity was interested in.

Other than these two races most of the Citadel associate races were wary to outright hostile to the Human presence. It was actually surprising that relations with the Turians had improved to the point they were at now, but one shouldn't question good fortune.

Admiral Kurita was pleased by the Turians generous gesture regarding the Treaty of Farixen, not that it would have mattered considering the Alliance already had more 'dreadnoughts' than they were supposed before joining the Treaty. Human Battleships were generally larger than other Citadel races excepting the Asari. With the Turian Hierarchy moving to modify the treaty for Humanity as a gesture of goodwill it meant the number of dreadnoughts the Alliance would be 'permitted' would be only slightly smaller than the Salarians.

The Batarians had thrown an utter hissy fit at the announcement, and had not stopped complaining about it since. Rather than do the intelligent thing and build more cruisers or even consider building carriers, as humanity had been doing, they simply continued to whine. The Admiral mused that the Batarian's idiocy would only lead to their own suffering, and that he shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth.

First Lord of the Admiralty Gilbert Boyle was a bit less antagonistic with regards to the dealing with the Citadel Races, but agreed Humanity needed to maintain its current policy. Boyle's policies had however met with some criticism back home. Those policies namely the joint operations with the Turian Fleet had eased tensions between the two powers over the last few years.

Ambassador Silvio was the 'official' representative to the Citadel on behalf of the Alliance, but in reality the Alliance's Ambassador task was really just to keep an ear out for things that might effect humanity. This meant most of that when he wasn't negotiating treaties for humanity he was looking into various rumors.

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Chapter begin

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Akuze 2177

Humanity had spent seventy years developing and colonizing the worlds immediately around their home system using the KF drive. With the reactivation of the Charon Mass Relay twenty eight years previously Humanity had gained another method of spreading amongst the stars.

The planet Akuze was in the early stages of colonization when contact had been lost with the initial pioneer team. A platoon of Alliance Marines had been ordered in to investigate and so far they'd found diddly with regards to survivors, or bodies for that matter.

When night had fallen on the planet the unit of Marines had decided to set up base camp and set a pair of its fire teams to patrol. Akuze was a verdant world with an atmosphere rich in oxygen, and with a healthy mix of carbon dioxide and nitrogen and with only a slightly longer day than Earth.

Corporal Ts'ao had been complaining that this whole mess was suspicious as hell, though not in those exact words, right before all contact with the corporal's fire team had been lost.

Sergeant Rahul had not been a happy camper over that and ordered his own squad off their own search to check on Ts'ao. Lieutenant John Sheppard had not been pleased to here Rahul had gone off on his own without waiting for him to get back into radio range.

It had been about a quarter of an hour later when the screaming and the wailing started, and then everything went ass over tit. The ground shaking had some worried about artillery, especially given the wailing sounds, but that was quickly disproved when they saw the first of the things.

"Shut up," Adam hissed gruffly, the specialist pulled the trigger to a grand total of yeah nothing, but making the thing mad. "Fuck," He snarled as the big worm like thing spat a glob of acid at them.

Luck was with them as the spray of corrosive shit didn't catch any of them. They'd already lost a fire team to the damn thing when they tried to stay up close to it. Hector and Lorita's shields had proved completely useless against the acid as it turned out, which didn't bode well at all.

Right now the drones were keeping the damn thing occupied but were really not doing anything more than pissing the damned thing off. An explosion signified one of the drones being lost, and the creature dove underground.

A minute later the thing burst out of the ground again and grabbed Corporal Toombs dragging him under as the creature retreated back under the surface of the planet.

"Fall back, we're moving to the hill," Rutkowski opened his mouth to complain about the order but Shepard cut him off, "There nothing we can do its dark and they're popping out of the ground sticking around will just get us killed." He snapped. "Now move it Rutkowski,"

The ground shook and another, or perhaps the same one, popped out of the ground and released a terrible shriek.

"Grenades now!" Shepard grunted tossing an explosive in the creature's 'face', "Suck on this ugly." The explosion detonated inside the creature's throat sending chunks flying everywhere as the grenade ripped apart the softer internal tissue.

An happiness over killing one of the things was short lived as another on showed up and gobbled down another helpless marine. The remaining base camp team still gathered together opened fire on the worm.

Shepard cursed as the remaining drones opened fire, their machine guns having little effect on the subterranean creature. A number of Marines assault rifles redlined, overheated, from the sustained firing. The lack of rocket drones was really coming to bite them in the ass. The lieutenant primed another grenade and tossed at the worm, it latched on blew a hole in the side of the creature, but that really just slowed it down.

PFC Gonzales got taken down next while moving to toss a grenade, the explosive detonated with minimal effect. She got skewered by one of the creature's claws.

Marine Gunner Stephenson tossed a grenade like a discus directly in front of the thing, "Get the hell clear it's a cobalt pack," He snapped. The remains of the unit dove for cover as the micro nuke went hot frying the already injured creature.

The miniature sun dimmed and the unit pulled back, not that there was much left of the unit. Of the fifty men dispatched to investigate two fire teams had been dispatched to do extended patrols of the area and probably were already dead. When the creature's had attacked the camp the unit had gotten split up.

Right now the remains of first squad was hiking up the hill to try and make contact via radio contact with any survivors. The staccato burst of machine gun fire erupted in the distance and there was another creature roar as group from second squad came rushing out of the outcropping of trees.

Half a dozen surviving Marines from a mixture of the first and fifth fire teams opened up on the creature as it made itself known. The rest of the surviving Marines followed up covering the retreating marines from second squad.

Corpsman Davies screamed as another of the monsters burst out of the ground and skewered him with one of its claw. Sheppard and two Marines turned and lobbed grenades at the beast, something they weren't gonna be able to keep up.

The explosives proved in any case to be effective if the horrific shrieks were any indication as the Corpsman's too still body dropped back to the ground along with the equally still form of the big worm like thing.

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Sheppard panted nearly collapsing against an old gnarled tree, the worms had attacked shortly after dusk and everyone had been running effectively the whole. There were just too many and they too damned hard to kill for the Marines to stand and fight with their limited numbers and light equipment.

Most the marines had been outfitted with standard Alliance light and medium armor, the only ones with heavy armor had been one of the sergeants, and Sheppard himself. The first instances of power armor had been developed in the early twenty first Century, though kinetic barriers were a fairly recent addition. In this regard human power armor had mainly relied on advanced composite materials to provide protection. The light material in light and medium weight power armor did well to protect against small arms fire, but the acid and the creature's claws didn't seem to be effected. Even Shepard's heavy armor wasn't doing so well, but the thicker plates were still intact to an extent. The lieutenant rolled to the side as another one of the worms attacked, it was like the damn things were tracking the marines, but that had to be total bullshit right?

He primed the grenade deciding to see how the bastard thing liked a taste of some of the Alliance incendiary grenades. The disc shaped explosive deployed its fins to stabilize its flight. Shepard didn't bother waiting and set off in a run, these things were just too damn tough to stay and fight without proper equipment, and as it was he was running out of grenades.

Plan, if the idea could be called that, was to get to higher ground, specifically the rocky hills about three klicks through the woods north by west, in the event of separation. That had been the plan at least, and that was what Shepard was trying for right now. A burst of static cut through his head set, "PFC ~ at the ~vous" A voice announced through the static. "fucking ~stards are still ~ing,"

While relieving that some of the marines had made it, the fact they seemed to be still under attack by the worms didn't do him any good at all. Getting through the woods was a task in and of itself at the best of time. Akuze was classed by the Citadel as a Garden world, much like Earth and a number of the worlds near the human homeworld that had been colonized over the last seventy years by the KF drive.

The Protheans, the race effectively venerated by the Citadel races, had been mucking about on Earth back during the cave man days. It wasn't really known what they had been doing, but perhaps they had had something to do with the abundance of habitable worlds near Earth.

John kept an eye on his armor's heads up display, HUD, not that it was doing that much good in the present situation. Crossing three kilometers of treacherous terrain in the dead of night while under attack by an unknown number of hostile aliens… correction giant hostile aliens… this was just great. Lieutenant Shepard kept moving a grip on his assault rifle which was at this point little more than a coping message considering how little of an effect it had on the creatures.

Akuze was a heavily forested world, covered in millions of alien trees with an environment well suited to Earth based plant life. The planet was well suited for agricultural development and human settlement or at least that had been the thought prior to this mess.

Akuze's hills were actually a collection of raises in terrain covered by grass, oddly though initial looks said they probably were over some kind of set of caves possibly the remains of lava flow tunnels. They were supposedly as tough as alliance ferrocrete though, meaning these burrowing worms were not likely to be able to get to them on the hills. That was the hope at least, if they could hold out till morning they could wait for the arrival of their extraction team. The team hadn't expected the need for fire support, and the briefing had never mentioned the possibility of needing to be extracted under fire.

He had heard the screeches as he'd made his approach up the incline that was the hill, crouching behind another alien tree with the weird scale like bark, to take a look up ahead. He saw the swaying form of one of the beasts as it soaked up a barrage of assault rifle fire from probably six to eight marines. There was a strange humming noise and a Rover came careening off the hill, "Yee haw, you fucking bug, how d'you like them apples." Had this been any other situation John would have slapped himself, Bo was an idiot but in all surprise that had actually worked.

The M19 Rover Scout vehicle had slammed into the worm with a great deal of force. The intentional crash had messed up the heavy duty armored front of the car but creature was an even worse mess.

"Ah schucks lieutenant its done and deader than roadkill," Bo drawled kicking the bloody and too still form of the worm as Shepard headed up. "You see ain't nothing you can't deal with the-" that was as far as he got before he got gobbled up by the resurgent worm.

John cursed and he and the remains of the Marine team opened fire, badly injured the worm staggered under the assault of infantry kinetic energy weapons. As soon as that one died another showed up to attack the marines.

The remaining supply of grenades dwindled as more men and women died, but the second worm went down. The ground shook and a tree was uprooted as another of the beasts leaped out the ground and slithered up the hill. The fucking thing was huge, but while it was big it was also reckless. Shepard prepped his grenade, one of two he only had left, at the same time a claw came round and split his helmet.

Blood leaked down into one eye and the grenade blew underneath the third creature, and everything exploded. The ground around them collapsed about them and the 'hill' under their feat gave way. Shepard's armor bombarded him with warnings.

Then the ground was back, and back with a vengeance he grunted as the air left his lungs when he slammed into the ground. "Volcanic caves my balls," He spat after stumbling to grab his assault rifle. His armor was fucked up and breached in at least a dozen different places, and that was just the start of the warnings, especially given the health read outs. As it stood at least half those breaches had kept on going and torn him up as well as his armor.

The 'tunnels' weren't tunnels at all and Shepard like every Alliance soldier, citizen or even a Citadel Race member recognized the signs of a Prothean lab… on that was powered. That hadn't happened since they, the human race, had found the Lab at Mars... and well the Citadel were lucky if they found working Prothean trinkets much less a fully functional lab.

A million thoughts ran through his head, were the worm things the defenses for the facility, being one of them. A light sparked to his right. "Greetings I am Dante the Virtual Intelligence for this laboratory." Announced the humanoid holographically projected image.

Shepard stumbled hitting a table attached to a wall upon which were set a number of alien devices. "What is this place,"  
"A place of study,"  
He straightened up not an easy task at present, "of what, those things?"  
"No, of those who we call the Reapers, and of you."  
The grip he had on his assault rifle tightened, as he took his bleeding hand away from the table not noticing one of the devices had activated. "Me what does that mean?" He demanded.

"Not of you, but your species." Answered the VI, "You are the last, the successors of both us and the others."

"Successors of what?" He snapped back stumbling into another rack of tools, "

-

-

General Lyon looked at the ICU suite, "He going to be all right then corpsman?" He asked though a hint of steel was under the man's voice.

"He's stable, but the next seventy two hours will tell us for certain." The man stated stripping off his surgeon's cap, "if he does survive his unit is dead, slaughtered by those things," He remarked, "I'm concerned about the psychological damage that could result, and that doesn't take into account the anomalous readings its really strange he doesn't have implants,"  
"Implants?" The general responded, "I'm not sure I follow you, I know Shepard's file states he's further along the advancement path but he isn't Clanner, or a cyborg,"  
The doctor shook his head, "Not that he's a biotic, the nodes are benign I'm surprised he wasn't apart of the training regimens, no one noticed?"

"No he grew up on Earth, no data exists on his parents, they must have missed him," He responded, "There was no evidence mentioned in his file about it, you'd think he would have used it?"  
The corpsman shook his head, "That's just it I think he was using it, during the fight, generating a mass effect field make himself faster and stronger," He paused, "From the reports were dying left and right and those things were hard to kill its lucky he survived in his state."

The doors opened with pneumatic hiss, "How is our dutiful hero?" Remarked the newest entrant, "House Davion is quite pleased," He announced. "In fact all the houses all quite pleased you know?"

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Growled the general, if that statement had come from anyone else he'd have thought there was a risk of something going afoul.

The newcomer smirked, "You haven't seen the news have you general," He stated smugly, "Its all over the casts Lieutenant Shepard and the lost marines of Akuze, the public loves a hero. Fighting on a mysterious world against the alien monsters, I'd be surprised if they didn't make a movie, everyone is happy. The public has a hero and there is a new source of Prothean technology for us to study, and possible answers for our questions."  
"Shut up Blake." Lyon snapped angrily at the bureaucrat.

Through all this Shepard slept under heavy anesthesia while the Alliance's military medicine tended to the hundreds of scratches and damages to his body.

No Alliance warship noted the shift in space as a two kilometer warship arrived, no one saw the ship. No one detected it as picked up the unsealed electronic transmissions or just sat there. Things had changed the circle of extinction had broken.

All living things with sentient thought had their own opinions, but all sentient life tended to group together for survival and the benefits which were offered by living together.

In the mean time Blake was busy rattling on about how thoroughly pleased the Great Houses of Earth were, and more importantly he continued what a positively wonderful discovery this was. "Imagine it a working Prothean Virtual Intelligence we can rub this in the Citadel's face for the next half century at the very least, yes I definitely see Akuze as a major human fortress now." He stated with glee, "this world's development will be accelerated imagine it something like the Inner Sphere, it will be like New Earth was thirty or forty years ago in a few or maybe dozen months, think of it heavy development is inevitable."

General Lyon desperately restrained himself from slugging the man, consoling himself it could have been worse.

-

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Chapter conclusion

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Helltanz's notes: As far as things go this story is fairly AU for stuff to be announced for ME 2 and the novels, such as for the Geth and other stuff.

If your actually curious as to the Alliance's main members its as follows, note all members of the NPT, effectively it isn't Mega NATO IN SPACE!! That is not the intention seeing as its more of unified military command structure but at the same time big time economic body.

Primary Members:

United States, Russian Federation, Australia, Great Britain, France, China, Germany, Japan, India, Ukraine, Unified Korea, Brazil, Sweden, Ireland, Finland, Malta, Cyprus, Kazakhstan, Belgium, Turkey, Romania, Luxembourg, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Norway, Estonia, Argentina, South Africa, Spain, Bulgaria, Philippines, Croatia, Albania, Lithuania, Portugal, Poland, Iceland, Italy, Slovakia, Slovenia, Latvia, Denmark, Egypt, Turkmenistan, Armenia, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Uzbekistan, and anybody apart of the EU, CIS or NATO I forgot, plus a couple others I forgot.

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	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Cry of Silent Stars

Helltanz's notes: Alright my original plan has been scrapped. Scrapped you hear me. Instead of that plan I'm just going to go ahead and use the initial chapters to further flesh out Shep's backstory and work on the Alliance rather than skip to Eden Prime. In addition to that I'm going to be world building.

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Disclaimer: come on you should know the drill by now

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Summary: Nearly 50000 years ago the Prothean's gave their final parting shot against their enemy before being hunted to extinction. In 2107 Humanity tested successfully the Kearny Fuchida Drive, following this humanity begins colonization of the stars. Forty one years later they discovered the Prothean Ruins on Mars and other objects of extraterrestrial origin on the red planet. It is in 2157 the First Contact War begins. The year is 2183.

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Codex Entry:

Swooping is a tactic utilized by the Alliance and Clan Fleets. Using the human Kearny Fuchida Drive system mounted on Warships human vessels literally 'jump' in at 'knife fighting' range. This transition of space allows the hyperspace distortion bubble to damage the enemy ship and allows the humans to savage enemy vessels.

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Chapter Begin

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Mars 2177

Admiral Charles Rheinhardt clicked the video cast off. The successor to television, or rather television by any other name, was basically just television that was transmitted via Faster than Light communication and was three d when possible. Reports about Akuze had filtered in over the last week. That was basically all that was on.

So far the worm like aliens were being called Thresher Maws.

All of this... It was all a big mess. That was exactly what it was a giant mess.

"You seem disturbed Admiral," Remarked the song like tones that was the voice of Alien Space Ship 0 as it projected through the complex.  
Rheinhardt scowled, only people who were used to the big alien ship talking was LaSalle and some of the scientists. As for everyone else well they were notably creeped out, not to mention the giant spider could read you like a book. It was still up in the air whether the thing was actually telepathic or just that good at psychological profiling and such.

Liao Fon all but jumped at the living warships sudden statement, which more than made Admiral Rheinhardt's day. Sure the bioship was annoying, and downright creepy but well Liao was a ponce.  
"Perhaps I was mistaken," Murmured the ship. After that Alien Space Ship 0 said nothing for a while.

The Admiral turned to the envoy of House Liao. Right now they were deep underneath the surface of Mars. Earth or rather the Alliance was preparing to transfer as significant force to Akuze. To supplement this force they wanted to use the latest sensor system developed from Alien Space Ship 0.

Reverse engineering of the sensor technology had mainly been focused on developing for warship sensors. "Sensor package for the Rommel is almost ready," He remarked. The Rommel was a carrier, and was currently sitting berthed in the Martian Shipyards waiting for the package.

Those shipyards were massive orbital monstrosities that were for the most part automated, like most human shipyards. The whole massive complex could be run by as few as eighty people. All they really needed to do was ship the new parts up to the facility and it would install them.

"Very good Admiral," The man responded immediately, he didn't pause before continuing on. "and the matter of weapons research,"

Charles Rheinhardt raised an eyebrow. "They are still being developed." The fact was it was a whole lot easier to back engineer Prothean technology. The technology of Alien Space Ship 0 was incredibly advanced. Its directed energy armament was… yeah advanced didn't even begin to do it justice.

Alien Space Ship 0's armaments were a stark contrast to most of the galaxy's warships. The main gun instead of a ship spanning railgun, like any other non human warship to date, was a powerful beam of some kind. In place of smaller secondary kinetic energy weapon batteries or GARDIAN arrays the ship mounted smaller versions of its primary weapon and some kind of other, though still very advanced, energy weapon.

Humanity had more advanced directed energy weapons than the rest of the galaxy, mainly because for the most part they were 'home grown' so to speak. To compare humanity's own weapons to the Alien Space Ship 0's weapons was to compare well it really was no comparison.

Some of the technology from the ship had been easier to develop than others. Weapons and some of the other features however had been a great deal harder to develop, even with the immense funding the project received.

Doctor Thomas Noonan cleared his throat, "Sorry sir," He grunted, "Theoretically the new software offers an improvement of the existing software by a factor of ten to fifteen across all spectrums. It's definitely better than the old version that was installed on the Rommel and it's the same size. So not much to worry about." The scientist paused, "that being said we are rushing this system so we may not get the full expected benefits."  
"Your opinion is noted doctor, but as you say it is an upgrade of the existing systems." Responded Liao, making it abundantly clear in his tone the doctor's opinion could go stuff itself. That much was true the new sensor was just replacing an older version of itself.

Prothean sensors were good, far better than even Asari sensors. Thing was the sensors back engineered from the Alien Space Ship 0 were FTL sensors, making them vastly superior to any Prothean derived system.

It was half the reason the Turians had gotten the tar kicked out of them during the First Contact War and why pirates tended to fail miserably when fighting humans. Fact was even the old models that only had a few light hours range, still it was enough to pick a target and pop in to say 'hi'.

Hi of course in this case meant nuclear missile spam at close enough range point defense was drastically reduced in effectiveness.

Right now Akuze was vulnerable even if it had been reinforced. Even worse was the fact that some idiot had apparently mentioned Prothean Ruins on the news before the Alliance could shut the news up. Right now a task force of Cruisers were sitting in system with a bunch of Frigates, even had a Clan Red Fox Battleship sitting around. Still if word got out of a working Prothean Lab there would be trouble. Actually as far as things went somebody would more than likely try their hand at something just for Prothean ruins.

Even though the Alliance represented the bulk of humanity the clans were separate, the Council knew this. As far as things went it actually helped relations with the Turian Hierarchy, their government, because they could relate to that situation.

Nothing helped two people get along better than to have issues that they could relate too.

Xenophobia was still an issue, but these days it was applying steadily more towards the Batarians, or even the Salarians than the Turians. A lot of the military was free of the notion, at least for the Turians. Even a good chunk of the 'old guard' weren't too bothered by the Turians, for the most part anyway.

Rheinhardt had had his job for a while now. Ashcroft had been old as it was, hence why he had retired from the position far earlier. Admiral Rheinhardt would have to go about selecting his successor soon enough.

Humanity had its similarities with the Citadel Races. When mankind found remnants of alien technology it did its best to back engineer them. At the same time however humanity thought outside the box too.

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Akuze 2177

Sheppard had never seen this many warships around a frontier world, Earth yeah, New Earth most certainly, but a Frontier world no. Still he could understand it after all they had a working Prothean lab. The loss of the platoon and the initial expedition of colonists had been the price paid for a fully working Prothean lab.

Cerberus was ecstatic over the recent events, for the most part. They were the blackest of the black organizations. If humanity needed research done they did it. If someone needed killing they'd gladly supply the information to the N7s or just do the killing themselves.

The organization existed to serve humanity, and to advance it. This was what helped them sleep at night.

They had let the Thresher Maws loose on Akuze to study the creatures and see how the Marines reacted. They were delighted that they had survivors, though somewhat put out that they couldn't touch Shepard. Still Shepard would help other humans survive by passing on the skills needed to kill the creatures.

The discovery of the Prothean lab was something that made their day even better, and pretty much made up for not getting to study Shepard.

Cerberus's activities in the system were noted only by the two kilometer long alien warship who no one noticed. Stealth in space was a complicated matter due to how star ships operated. Stealth in space was still being researched, mainly 'active stealth' like ECM and preventing the enemy from picking up signals and such.

The alien warship was beyond all that. Its creators had reigned supreme, and had designed the sentient vessel to easily last the ages and be beyond the eye of lesser races if the warship chose.

Its makers had slain stars on a whim. They had nurtured life, and brought death to the impertinent races. They had been advanced beyond the most advanced.

The loss of the creators had been a crises for the warship's kind. They had nurtured life along a certain path for so long to prevent them from surpassing their creators.

The Protheans had called them Reapers. For millions of years the machines had carefully monitored things keeping about their self appointed task in seeing none surpassed their makers. Things had changed with the Protheans. They had gotten as lax as sentient machines could. The Protheans had violated for centuries their creator's ancient ruins, and done things the so called Reapers had never thought of doing.

What the Protheans done had been... the closest word for the Prothean's crime to the Reapers was sacrilege.

The Race the so called Citadel species adored had engineered a final plot to deal a blow to the Reapers. They had arranged to break the cycle of extinction. In doing so they had caused a rift between the machines.

The Protheans had committed the greatest sin in the Reapers' eyes. They had dared to violate their, the Reaper's, maker's tombs. It had violated the fundamental programming to protect their makers orders. It had in short infuriated the sentient machines beyond all logic.

Humanity knew nothing in depth of this. They knew the Protheans had an enemy. They Protheans had tampered with Cro Magnon humans. That was for the time being as far as things went. Hell humanity didn't even know why or in what way the Protheans had been tampering with ancient humans.

Virgil hadn't said much, mainly because the reinforcements had done little more than secure the lab. The Reaper warship in the system had decided to sit and watch. The Protheans had tampered with things.

It was something they, the Reapers, had never thought to do, and the warship had matters it wished to address. Those would have to wait until it got the chance though. An active source would be a potential beacon for the machines a chance to guide them back to the height of their society.

Shepard was just a lieutenant. He didn't know any of this. Right now he was just a lieutenant. This meant he didn't know about Cerberus, didn't know about the Reapers other than the name from the Protheans.

Even the majority of the newly arrived human defenders didn't know about the existence of Cerberus, much less anything more. Right now the cluster of human warships were occupied maintaining vigil.

The arrival of the Rommel and its support was something that raised issues. The fact was the presence of two 'Capital Ships' would set off alarms for anybody who found out about it. The mainstay of human space was rarely visited by non humans, but Akuze wasn't in that region of 'main' space.

Shepard didn't know about the Rommel's arrival till one of the corpsman mentioned it. Not that it really was something to be expected, him being told. Fact was the lieutenant was banged up.

Alliance bio technology was advanced. There was a reason Medi-gel was so popular with the Citadel races and a major export. Advanced it might have been but there were some things it took time to heal.

Given another few days though Shepard would be back to, and more than fit, physically anyway, for combat duty. Of course the likelihood of the corpsman authorizing him for active duty was about as likely as scoring with an Asari Matriarch.

When it came to the Citadel races humanity had its problems. Most of the associate races tended to be at best wary around humans. The exception to this was the Asari, the Turians, the Elcor, or the Hanar, who were all 'friendly' to some extent or another.

Despite the first contact war it was the Turians who could be counted as amongst Humanity's closer friends on the galactic stage.

The Asari were always favoring diplomacy to resolve matters so were quite pleased by this turn of events. For humanity and the Turians to resolve their differences peacefully, especially since both were so militarily minded, was excellent.

The Elcor were rarely belligerent and their imports were of interest for humans.

The Hanar were well alien, but were not bad by any means.

Unfortunately other than those races the other associate races tended to be problems. The worst of these were the Batarians, or rather had been. Six years ago the Batarians had closed their embassy on the Citadel. Nowadays things were steadily inching towards the chance of open war with the Batarians. The most recent event had been the Skyllian Blitz by the Aliens, which had been an utter disaster, for the pirates anyway.

Back then he'd been deployed with a 'cluster' of other N7 troops. The regular marines had been too much for the pirates, fighting a spec ops 'cluster' had been even worse for the crooks.

Shepard took a look at the paste that covered the healing injury that was one of his hands. A piece of debris had punched a quarter of an inch wide hole through his palm. The shard of metal had gone through one side and out the other nicking part of the bone.

Export medi-gel was useful for stabilizing injuries, but the alliance kept the good stuff to itself. Where he had had a pretty little hole through his hand there was nothing but tender flesh right now.

-

-

Word had gotten out to the larger community fairly quickly, but not before the Rommel and its taskforce had gotten on scene. By the time the Citadel heard about the Akuze attack there was a full colony ship in orbit. Yeah it had been rushed by the high command.

That colony team was supported by a large detachment of Alliance Army Corp of Engineers. Fact was the Alliance High Command wanted the planet ready ASAP. Soon however wouldn't be quick enough though for anybody involved.

Despite all of this movement and the increasing Alliance presence they still never noted the Reaper Warship carefully monitoring the situation. The warships stealth was good it could sit still for ages and unless it powered weapons they'd never know 'he' was there.

The marines and the pioneer team lost on Akuze were now well known across the galaxy.

Earth or the Alliance was ruled de jure by a mix of the Great Houses and various important figures. Within the 120 light year sphere of Earth there were more than six hundred worlds under Alliance jurisdiction the issue was simple. If you had power you got things done. The Alliance's first colonies had been colonized via the KF drive. The colonization program had required a mass expenditure of resources.

When Blake had said that the Great Houses were pleased by the discovery of the Prothean Lab it meant that a lot of work could be done. The Alliance Senate had been originally founded as a way to organize and control matters of economy, and had originally gotten off to a rocky start. These days the Senate was responsible for handling the passage of laws and such.

There was a lot to be gained by capitalizing on the acquirement of a functioning Prothen lab. People who found valuable things like this got rewarded, for 'benefiting mankind'. Shepard had been born on Earth, it was a fairly simple set up.

"Relax elltee you gonna give yourself wrinkles like that when you get old," One of the marine sergeants who was currently off duty grumbled. "We got this system locked down, anybody trying to come is gonna get seen a mile off."

That was true humanity was the only race affiliated with the Citadel that had FTL sensors. Apocrypha now had it that during one of the first joint anti pirate patrols the Turian force commander had ignored a warning about incoming ships from the human force commander. Story went on that when the pirates had arrived the only people at battle condition were the human ships. Ever since then the Turians tended to listen, and actively request deployment of human ships for joint patrols.

If anything tried to come to pay a visit to Akuze they'd been seen well out with the Rommel's latest generation set of sensors.

"Lieutenant Shepard," A corpsman grumbled, "while you are stable you're not getting discharged from med bay anytime soon." He didn't add that that was only if he had anything to say about it.

That was easier said than done. Fact was resting was not something all that easy when you had had countless shards of stone and metal turn you into a pincushion. Advanced medicine didn't fix psychological problems.

Forty nine marines, honorary in the case of the corpsmen slain, had been killed on Akuze by the Thresher Maws. To say the marines aboard the task force was angry would be an understatement.

When the cruiser Quebec had arrived in orbit it had begun extensive surface scans. The Quebec could only barely detect the still shielded Prothean facilities, but was able to map the surface of the planet and triangulate the remaining Thresher Maws. What it learned had brought all to anger.

The Rover scout vehicle hadn't gotten deployed at all in its place the Alliance T 71 Semi Automated Assault Tank 'Devastator' rolled out. The T 71 lived up to its name. Combining lessons learned from traditional human engineering and studying the Elcor's own war machines a single tank could provide enormous support for the battlefield. Equipped with a pair of mass accelerator cannon which wouldn't have been out of place on a destroyer from two hundred years ago the thing could make swift work of the giant alien worms.

Humanity's sword drank blood that night.

Once they were sure that all the Thresher Maws were dead then the Alliance had started building a forward command post. Knowing the Thresher Maws were dead helped a great deal, for Shepard at least.

The arrival of the Rommel and the other reinforcements meant that things were being accelerated. People noticed these kinds of things, and it since it wasn't a warzone they would probably have issues with news reporters soon.

Alliance law specifically permitted the government to place constraints on the press. This law was based around the fact some member nations having tighter control over the media, and stricter libel laws.

It had been objectionable to some members of the populous back during the initial founding of the alliance. That had been a long time ago. These days however everybody was used to it after all it was no more strict than Italy or the United Kingdom's laws on the subject had been at the start of the twenty first century.  
The Citadel races' own laws ranged from the extremely open Asari to the slightly stricter than humanity's Turians, but the less said about the Salarians the better.

Humanity didn't particularly trust the third member of the Citadel Council. Sure they'd gone to war against the Turians, but the Salarians had a nasty habit of trying to commit espionage and think they could get away with it.

Chances were the Salarians were going to be amongst the first to try and get to Akuze and poke around. It was for this reason there was an ongoing full Combat Air Patrol in the system.

-

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Right on the money, which made certain marines very happy with their winnings from the betting pool, the Salarians had decided to show up.

The 'radio' clicked as it established a connection, "Salarian vessel," The pilot stated, "this is Lieutenant Commander Clawson of the Alliance Navy. You have arrived in a human system. This system is off limits. You will identify yourself or be destroyed."

On board the Rommel, specifically the warship's Combat Information Center of the Carrier, Admiral Richard McKenna was not a happy camper. "Tell the Salamis, and Bunker Hill to 'swoop' in and pay our intruders a visit." He ordered.

"Aye sir," Came the response from the Rommel's executive officer.

Few things could scare the piss out of one of the Citadel Races like having an Alliance Frigate, never mind two, pop up right on top of you. Mankind had been working on improving and refining the KF drive for more than seventy years. Progress had been slow but with mass effect fields there had been a number of improvements made. Couple the KF drive with sensors and advanced electronics and you could make pocket jumps in system fairly easily.

That was an advancement figured out thirty years ago before the first contact war. These days those kind of jumps well it was commonplace. The Frigate Salamis arrived directly above the Salarian vessel. Salamis's extremely well armed ventral surface pointed at the Salarian vessel.

The Bunker Hill, under the command of Captain, naval, Pierre Loiselle, had jumped in behind, port, and above the Salarian vessel.

To make matters worse for the vessel Lt. Commander Clawson's squadron was 'beneath' the vessel spread out. There were of course potential risks to surrounding the vessel, but it also kept the Salarian vessel from doing much either. Even so human aersospace fighters were dangerously well armed craft, never mind armored straight up to tank levels.

When the Salarian vessel had arrived everyone in system had already known about it well ahead of time. There was serious potential of this turning into an 'international' incident easy. It had been obvious who was coming.

With the Turians they'd at least try and let you know ahead of time, hey humans any chance we can avail ourselves of the opportunity to discharge our drives, or some other reason. With the Asari you'd get some really polite, politically correct worded announcement that sounded like they were asking to come over without being impolite. The Salarians they just tended to pop up and hide behind a moon unless you called them out. With the other citadel races you generally didn't have to worry about them coming over into human space.

The Elcor generally didn't like space travel, but would always inform humanity well in advance they were coming. The Hanar were opposite human space, pretty distant, but also were generally good about letting the Alliance know well ahead of time.

The Salarians had gotten really up tight with humans since the Turians had pushed through the modification to the Treaty of Farixen. The increased human presence in the peacekeeping fleets probably didn't help. Since that time a lot of the human portion of the peacekeeper force had been stationed in the Skyllian verge, or coupled with Turians for general anti pirate operations.

The Asari had thought it had been a good idea, after all it had been a peaceful resolution to the problems right?

The Salarians had just gotten more nervous, and they tended to like keeping an eye on things that made them nervous. Unfortunately humanity didn't like people sneaking into its back yard and peaking through the curtains.

-

"There is nothing to be worried about," A stocky man remarked, "All is under control," Alexei stated. The burly major was an N4.

N was the designation for Special Forces. The 4, in N4, designating Alexei as a member of Marine Advanced Recon. Military Vocational Code, MVC, numerals only referred to proficiency not rank. At the same time however it wasn't terribly uncommon for certain situations to crop up where you deferred to a lower ranked soldier of a different specialization.

The major was a good guy from whatShepard could tell, though generally a bit more lax off duty than most.

His nominal second in command more than made up for any perceived difficulties with discipline by being a hard ass. Lieutenant Yang was to put it lightly was obsessed with being strict. Hell Shepard hadn't even seen the man drink anything other than water the whole time.

Luckily Yang was off duty this morning, with Shepard filling in. Rumor had it Yang was off doing PT in full kit… for 'fun' as he'd put it. The idea that Yang could have fun was alien, at least from what he had seen of the guy so far.

-

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Shepard had gotten cleared for duty and debriefed in full about a fortnight after the Akuze attack. The incident with the Salarians had gone pretty well all things said. At the same time however they knew something was up.

Yeah humans tended to get real defensive if you showed up uninvited, and with good reason, and that was a known fact. Thing was humans didn't tend to drop two heavily armed frigates right on top of you for showing up in a small vessel.

Eventually Lord Cameron, as in the actual honest to god head of the family, had made a statement. As far as things went House Cameron was the leader of the Great Houses of Man.

Each house tended to have some sway with those like Kurita and the other major houses ruling multiple planets. It had been those houses who had pushed for the rapid colonization with money. It was that reason why they were such a big deal in modern politics.

In any event the crux of the statement was the deaths at Akuze, and the discovery of a functioning Prothean lab. That had well caused an effective uproar. Humanity revealed its little trump card. Functional Protean tech was big news.

Humanity wasn't going to take intrusion into the system lightly. Scuttlebutt was Akuze was getting a large amount of resources put towards it. Shepard could believe that.

Earth wasn't a system the Citadel would ever dream of attacking. New Earth, Avalon, or any of the major 'core' worlds of humanity likewise were downright scary when it came to defenses. This was of course even forgoing the fact that at least Earth was situatuated at a Mass relay.

Sol's development spanned before they had even had faster than light travel. It was how Sol was set up that defenses for other systems were based. Simply because the system had a relay didn't mean the system was vunerable. Coming through the Relay required you to leave at a specific point, and humanity knew precisely where you would come out.

Akuze would get the full package. The full package meant orbital platforms for construction, floating defenses. As well as hollowing out asteroids to make bases and fuel industry, and that was just scratching the surface. Until everything was set up though the world was vulnerable, well as vulnerable as it could be.

As things went though anybody approaching the system would be seen from well off. If you were seen on approach then a 'welcome' could be organized. Advantageous was generally not sufficient to do justice for humanity's ability in sensors.

None of that meant shit right this minute. Right this minute every Marine on planet was assembled, as well as every Navy man who was expected to serve on the front line on the ground or the air.

Mankind was the successor to two great races, and potentially more depending on how those briefed on Alien Space Ship Zero thought. The human tech base meshed the technology reverse engineered from alien sources, as well as native tech bases.

Edward Sinclair stood up, "As of 0800 Greenwich Mean Time Fire Fox protocol is in effect. The Citadel has received a cursory briefing from Lord Cameron. Due to this there is a window of opportunity, or at least some alien might get it in their heads there is, that they need to make a move."

Fire Fox had originally been developed during the Human Turian War, though its roots were older, dating to plans drawn up in the event of a rebellion on a group of colonies. The idea was to reinforce the at risk system over a period of time incrementally. It also meant high alert status.

"What the commander is saying is when your not on shift your to get some rest Marines!" The other ranking officer bellowed. "Your either on duty, or in your bunk catching winks or you damn well better be enroute! We will not be caught tired, we will not be caught flat foot! AM I CLEAR!!"

"Sir Yes Sir!" Came the chorus of replies.

"Dismissed."

-

-

The council was not so pleased by recent events. Well to amend they'd spent the better part of the last hour listening to a furious human say very 'disparaging things' about the Salarians.

Oh and then the Clan 'ambassador' had started speaking. The wolf khan had not been a happy camper either. He'd been furious about human blood spilled by 'death worms', the Asari name for Thresher Maws, "and then the Salarians show and wonder why we are angry with their intrusion!". He bellowed. "They sneak around like thieves in the night and violate our borders. Worse still they intrude when our honored warriors have died to beasts that burst from the ground, and dare THEY DARE take offense at our anger. That we are angry that we have not even had the chance to bury our honored dead before they have the gall to steal into our territory."

Yes the wolf khan was irate over the whole affair, but then the Clans tended to be this way over such things. Honor and such cultural matters dictated thus.

The Turian councilor nodded. He was having a hard time disagreeing with the human's position on the issue, the Salarian's 'excuse' and 'explanation' had been notable scarce.

The Asari councilor was notably however pleased that this didn't appear it was going to start a fight. Of course at the same time she was empathetic to the human's losses, and their reactions were obvious defensive action after such terrible things happening to their people. The Asari were very communal the loss of a member was a terrible thing.

Right now the Salarian was wondering how he was going to explain this back home... assuming he made it home he amended. The humans were angry yes but their were political rivals amongst the Salarians who were sure to want to relieve him following this 'failure'.

The Alliance representative did his best not to smile coldly. The Salarians had blundered this time. They had made the rash choice in moving as they had, but it was to be expected. It could not be helped.

Doctor Antonius Walker and Doctor Mark Stephenson both frowned. The Khan's reaction had been expected, in fact they were surprised that he hadn't been joined in his very vocal outrage by Admiral Kurita. Still the Clans liked rushing forward.

Shin respected the Turians, they at least had some honor. The Salarians however this was indeed unforgivable. Grey Wolf's pain was understandable long had they been close to the unit dispatched. The platoon was apart of a larger force, and a larger force. That division had history, it had its traditions and it had ties with the Clan that dated back since the beginning of the Clans.

The Kurita Family could understand the offense committed by the Salarians so callously. Their crime deeply offended his honor as well, it was more than that.

The two doctors glanced at him, Mark swallowed really hoping that the Admiral didn't try and avenge the unit with that 'ceremonial' sword of his. It might have looked fancy and elegant but Mark knew well enough Kurita had refined things like making swords of all things to an absurd point.

Oh sure it wasn't going to win a war but if Kurita Shin died 'avenging' the unit by slaying the Salarian councilor humanity would go to war before the 'day' ended on the Citadel.

Antonius cleared his throat. "As lord Cameron stated we have secured Akuze. The intrusion by the Salarian spy vessel, lets call it what it is shall we?" He stated dryly, "Is deeply offensive to us all."

The wolf khan seemed to think the wording was far to light on describing just how offended he was.

"Deeply offensive." Antonius backpedaled as Admiral Kurita spoke up, anger evident. "They violated our space, they dared spy on a world before my nephew and his brothers' remains could even be retrieved, and you say it just deeply offensive." He snarled. "ONE!! Only one of them survived!" He roared. "Yet the Salarians in their greed steal into our land without so much as a thought to our loss, and yet when they find our Samurai are furious with their intrusion, and they are angry. What do they know of ANGER!!" He demanded, "That we have not even been able to tend to our dead before they make an attempt to steal from us. That which is ours, which our blood has paid for. Cameron is lenient with you, and I am done here!" Shin turned anger spent as he departed the chamber.

The wolf khan anger hadn't abated, but the alliance representative stepped forward first. "We lost a platoon on that world, and a fledgling colony. Shepard found the Prothean laboratory. An Alliance fleet arrived because our people died, and the world was ours before the lab was even found. The Salarians intrusion was dangerously stupid."

The Salarian looked offended.

"Do you realize what would have happened had that not been a Warden clan." Snapped the representative furiously. "Clan Red Fox restrained itself, but what if it had been a Crusader clan."

The Khan stepped forward "You are not the Turians you have no honor in the eyes of the Clans. You are a species of honorless thieves, all of you are black caste." He growled, "He is right what if it had been a Crusader. You intruded in our allies land before they had even the chance to tend to their dead properly, and you dare take offense at our defenses. What would have happened had your spy ship been crewed by even greater fools. Suppose you struck an Aerospace fighter, or suppose you fired on the Bunker Hill? What then? What would happen then you would have faced already grieving warriors, all to eager to kill you." He declared. "Yet you are angry over your own good fortune? You are fools."

Silvio, the official ambassador, sighed. The clan's representative was always blunt, he turned to the representative. "Sir?"

"Continue doctor."

"Yes sir." Antonius nodded, "The Prothean laboratory amongst the information on it that is not classified is related to humanity's evolution and their interference in human evolution. Modifications done to early humanity and so on. This is all the Alliance has to say on the laboratory at this time, besides that it is intact and yes there is a VI. Mark."

His fellow scientist nodded, "Right Dante, the VI, is intact. In point of fact he reports that battle damage was minimal. The VI himself is well stupidly advanced to put it mildly. This guy could run a billion terraflops per second at like less than one percent of his processing power. Information on what all is in the lab is classified however, but the VI alone is not an AI and we have no evidence he has a combat purpose. Ergo we do not suspect he is a threat." To humanity Mark added quietly to himself.

The Council had gotten really worried about the VI, and not just because it was solely in human hands.

-

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Chapter conclusion

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Helltanz's notes: Alright I've got to stop there. A cleaned up and most likely expanded chapter 2 will be released at a later date. Chapter three will mark the departure from Akuze.

In addition updates will be infrequent at best due to real life issues.

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	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Cry of Silent Stars

Helltanz's notes: A lot of this story will be split between three focuses, that being the Citadel, events on or around Earth, and then with Sheppard. Further sub focus will be put towards Vizier's, and Sovereign's, musing, certain Turians, Asari plotlines, as well as other matters like the shifting politics of the Human Clans within their space.

This chapter deals a great deal with background information, and setting for things in the coming chapters.

Disclaimer: come on you should know the drill by now

Summary: Nearly 50000 years ago the Prothean's gave their final parting shot against their enemy before being hunted to extinction. In 2107 Humanity tested successfully the Kearny Fuchida Drive, following this humanity begins colonization of the stars. Forty one years later they discovered the Prothean Ruins on Mars and other objects of extraterrestrial origin on the red planet. It is in 2157 the First Contact War begins. Humanity has finally encountered an alien society.

-Chapter Begin -

Akuze was just the start of the shake ups that occured in 2177. Shortly after that the Clans, who were only nominally in contact with the Citadel as whole, discovered a primary relay in their latest space they were expanding into. Under Citadel law, which at the best of times humans barely paid lip service to, their place in the Treaty of Farixen, or at the worst outright ignored, as was the case in regards to genetic engineering, activating a dormant relay was forbideen or at the very least heavily restricted.

Its announcement raised another buzz of issues, and once again brought certain things to the front. The Clans as a whole again flaunted their disdain for the Citadel's bylaws, and more to the point this was a direct snub meant as a response to the actions of the Salarians over Akuze. With the Alliance, and by proxy the Great Houses, and their subordinate megacorporations diplomatic relations with the Citadel were maintained. This contact was primarily in the interest of trade, and anti piracy operations, as well as easy facilitation of communication with alien life. The Clans, being self sufficent, and uninterested in diplomacy or trade were unconcerned.

For years it had always been an issue the human fleet, and their explorative tendencies. The Great Houses of Man commanded fleets of vessels, most of cruiser size in accordance with human fleet doctrine, but the Clans were vastly more militant than the main stream of humanity, and that was the issue. It was a reminder that was constantly driven home, more than ever in this. The more ambitious clans saw this as an opportunity, an opportunity that they would seize.

Even despite their own anger the Wolf Khans were amongst the few counciling a more moderate path, a path that was not winning many supporters with the unaligned clans, and even within the Wolf Clan itself. Ultimately the vote came down to a rather solid majority, over sixty percent. A majority that in this case meant risking things. All political shifts aside the Turian Hierarchy did still have a sizable command staff intransient to going against Citadel bylaws.

There was one other matter, and that was the other half of humanity. Cameron had finally had enough, the Star, the symbol for the greatest of Humanity's Great Houses, had blanketed the networks in a release. Humanity had been offended; if the Salarians had even the faintest involvement with the Thresher Maw attack there would be war, that much was promised, but other than that Humanity would wait, or rather the Houses could wait.

House Kurita knew when to back down, and this was it. There was a reason House Cameron was the uncontested leader of the Great Houses. Of course that declaration had been before the Clans had blantantly activated a primary relay live for all Citadel, and Human, Space to see. If anyone had cared it would have demonstrated the differing political schools of thought between the Clans, and Alliance's leadership.

Akuze had been a blood bath, but the Prothean laboratory confirmed what long had humanity suspected. The more important fact was it contained for the most part intact Prothean Star Charts, and amongst those charts attached information regarding planets. That was to say the light years around earth had been artificially terraformed, by at least two seperate powers in the, from a point of view of cosmic history, recent ancient period.

The galaxy looked at the changes, and everyone continued to form there own opinion. There were still many things yet to unfold, and secrets that would come out in the coming months. The year twenty one seventy seven was by no means done yet, there was much more to tell in this year's story, and of the year's lasting consequences on everyone.

Everyone. Humans and Alien. Citadel and not. Alliance and Clan. Kurita or Liao. Steiner or Davion. It didn't matter there were changes coming, and not everyone would react well. No that was wrong to say. Some people just managed to a little less worse in response than others that was the kind of year 2177 would turn out to be.

-scene break-

Dante manifested, "Contact with Virgil has been established. Links with other installations' monitors remain offline, and are thus unavaible at this time." Blake frowned.

"I see," He muttered, it was a pity Dante was specifically built with biological sciences in mind oh well now that they had contacted Virgil they'd be able to further look into the matter of the Prothean. Blake was 'officially' subordinate to House Cameron, unofficially given some of the things he could get done, or had access to he was nearly as influntial as any high rankin member of any of the Houses. This of course came at a price, especially given precisely what the man was involved in, and encouraged.

The Prothean VI 'turned'. "Regarding operations to locate remaining military elements of the starfleet, unfortunately the war with the Reapers was centuries in its duration."  
"We are aware," House Davion's head added calmly, "Do you have a suggestion Dante?"  
"Not at this time, my task was with regards to your evolution and development I am of limitted capacity to comment on this issue. Virgil may have suggestions with regards to accessing other research programs, though these maybe been destroyed during the conflict with the Reapers. Speculation on my part is, as I have said before," The VI remarked testily, "of minimal value."

House Steiner's leader nodded, "The installation nearest the Clans is theoretically intact though?"  
"Speculation Leon, it is unlikely to be undamaged, but it may be of limitted function." Responded the VI. "Salvage is possible, but unlikely. I doubt the installation survived forty plus thousand years with possible battle damage."

Leon scowled. "Verdammen," He grunted. "But the Clans, they can recover it yes?"  
"Indeed," The prothean created intelligence responded, "the other human polity can safely reach that region of space with relative ease with faster than light travel that exists. Actual gain from such, is far more circumspect."

"Excellent, contact the Clans." Cameron smiled, and it wasn't a nice one, "Oh and Kurita-dono please ready the Eighth Fleet. Humanity must show solidarity in these deeply trying times." The Council Races were good trading partners, yes the Asari's expertise in certain fields was welcome, and the Turians were great for helping to keep piracy down, but there were certain things that humanity wouldn't tolerate. It didn't help the Salarian's were rather common as apart of piracy based out of the local Terminus systems, which served to trouble Alliance, and Citadel space.  
"Hai," Was the response, "A show of unity would remind less than pleasant neighbors we stand together against outer threats." He murmured. The real goal of this was to public make a show of reaffirming solidarity

Liao Sun nodded, "This may raise issues with certain Asari Republics. Still the Turians will likely agree with us a joint stance with them would deter trouble. Still the STG team we detected is unnerving."  
Cameron nodded, "Yes it is hardly a reassuring matter. We will deal with it shortly. Clan Redhawk is being most helpful in this issue." The High Lord remarked. "There is however of the matter of the increasing militancy most promiently amongst the Batarians."

"Political fallout from a war would be bad."

"And I agree with you," Cameron responded, "Still the Salarians are risking too much for this kind of political climate, not with everything as it is."

And this was true. In fact, not that he would ever confide this unless he had proof, Cameron was concerned that there might be members of the Salarians' government working with the Batarian Hegemony. This was not helped given the social structure of Salarian society, or their view towards immediate gains either. If it was true Humanity could gain some benefits of it on both sides of the galaxy, those kind of points were well remembered in the history books. That kind of backroom dealing would be useful for dealing with the various Citadel Races, most importantly the Asari, and Turians.

"That doesn't change the fact we have hundreds of hundreds of terabytes at the very least of raw data to deal with," Liao Sun interjected. "biological data, on humans, those genetic tags are marked, and we've found them in our own studies of the human genome."

-Scene Break-

For years the relay had been dormant, this reason of course for this was the nebula of the Citadel, and the stealthy nature of the relays themselves. When it finally had been discovered in the aftermath of the Rachni centuries past the council chose to leave it alone as per their new plan for dealing unactivated relays. When it activated the council was greeted to the sight of the emergence of a proud warship of the Human Clans. The discovery of Mass Effect based technology effected human ship building, but it was not what had defined their ship designs as had been the case with the Citadel Races. This was of course a by product of their initial forays into space.

Human Super Carriers, such as the Alliance Warship Rommel, and the Alexander, were massive constructs. This was true of most human vessel which generally outmassed their Citadel simply because of Human design strategy. Humans who had not discovered easily applied shield technology until less than half a century ago had focused on advanced composite materials to form armor taking full advantage of their already impressive superiority in material sciences. This lead to human ships mounting several meters of armor to each meter of armor thick compared to average Citadel combat vessels. Of course that human shielding had only recently, only post First Contact War, been relatively lower grade compared to the Citadel this made sense.

As a result of this, and human directed energy weapons development, a Human Cruiser, whether Clanner or Alliance, was generally around eight hundred meters in length, and far more heavily armed. This contrasted heavily with the 'anemic', as Human's called them, Salarian Cruisers, which tended to be smaller. Roughly though this size put them at parity with the Turians, and Asari who favored far larger ships though for vastly different reasons.

In simpler terms Salarian cruisers were samller, more easily produced, underarmed vessels. As far as things went in human terms they were what would be called light cruisers. Asari cruisers reached nearly into the restricted dreadnought class, being slightly larger than either human or turian cruisers, and were almost elongated spheres in shape, and quite a bit more massive. Turian cruisers were roughly the same length as their human counterparts, varying with each class, and mounting amongst the Citadel Races what were considered heavier guns, mass accelerators, and with their distinctive avian shape.

Admiral Kurita had barely received word from his aide before the attention of CSEC and the Council turned to the bulk of humanity's represenatives. What followed was of course the usual concerning, what the Citadel tended to call, reckless exploration from the Asari and the Salarians joining in.

The Salarians joining in was political maneuvering, and little more. The salarians lived too short of lives for that. The Turians were lacking in response. Rather their response was distinctly lacking in its usual strength. The Hierarchy was a meritocracy, and there was an increasing split along three political bends. Exploration was looking to be the next great step towards improving the Hierarchy according to some. It'd take the traditional hardliners time to muster through to get a condemnation, just a little though, but it'd still take time.

"I will reiterate. The Clans exploration is not controlled by the Alliance. The Alliance only sets policy for the House Explorers," He reminded, which was for the most part true the Alliance government stipulated where Terran subordinate explorerers went. The Alliance certainly wasn't going to admit to certain off the books projects that were looking for alien technology.

"This was a deliberate political statement because of Akuze," Came the more than a bit reckless response.  
Shin Kurita gave a blank stare. "Akuze, you say? Perhaps it was perhaps not, who can say." He stated in a calm secure voice. "Your distress should be taken up with the Khans of the Redhawk Clan. It is there decision. House Kurita has no hand in dictating Clan policy. Thank you." He bowed slightly, and left. The snub was there, but at the same time it was the truth, for what the truth was worth in politics. Even so the clans risked taking things too far regarding the Salarians, who were to the clans all black caste. Still there was an advantage to the clans, while the Turians would eventually come around to condemming this move they themselves were divided along clan lines, so humanity as whole would more than likely get a pass.

There would be political repercusions to this. It wouldn't simply be amongst the Council though. The Salarians were offended at being caught red handed but the associate races were the real issue. Of the dozens of species represented by embassies on the Citadel there was an increasing resentment towards the growing presence militarily. One that the Salarians would not be above exploiting in their own interests. The Batarians were also the other issue, increasing militancy was a large concern to the human fleets, specifically now that reports were filtering in about Batarian naval programs.

No the issue would not be the Turians, but rather the Salarians stirring things up. That would be how things would be played, both sides going back and forth until someone went to far, or something bad happened.

-Scene break- Earth Tokyo

The milllenium had brought as many changes as the century before it. From the great industrial power bases of the nineteen hundreds these great powers had become the dominant powers of the world economy. What first became the so called neo colonialism quickly became the colonization of space following the advent of fusion technology in the first twenty years into the new millenium.

From the return to prominence of nationalist and culturally centric standpoints in the early years of the millenium, and without a violent pair of world wars to supress these movements they became standardized points of view. In twenty sixteen Japan drafted a new constitution, in this new constitution it reformed the Japanese Self Defense Force, into again an Armed Forces.

That had been more than a century ago, but that change had set the foundation for what would become Japan's contribution to the Great Houses of Man. Following the final, and obvious, conclusion of the Korean war Japanese, namely the modern Zaibatsu, and Korean economic interests made billions rebuilding what had been both North and South Korea, as well as the regions of Japan hit by North Korean missiles. This influx of funding, and the sucess of the military supported the Kurita Clan, which grow into one of the great houses.

Fusion powers development didn't change anything immediately. It wasn't in fact until the thirties that the change really became felt, and that was only in the developed world. Cheap, and safe, electricity meant a lot. It didn't change the facts about power grids, and maintaining them, but fusion power meant plenty of energy, and a vastly lower carbon foot print. It was only one part of the technological revolution that brought the world towards what it was today.

Officially the Kurita were well the New Shogunate of Japan, officially, and publically they were quite subordinate to the Empress of Japan, and thats how they liked to be portrayed as Samurai. It helped with their local image, both here on Earth and amongst the colonies. Brave warriors, and all, after all when people thought of Kurita thats what people tended to assume military officers, as opposed to old men controlling Japanese Megacorporations conducting backroom deals.

"Cameron thinks the Clan's demonstration will alleviate some of our problems." A wizened voice announced. "We hope he is right,"

A younger man stepped away from the balcony overlooking Tokyo bay. "He's going under the belief that the Citadel will want to avoid a war, and that we're willing to push this that far."  
Earth of the twenty second century was very different than the Earth of the century prior. Massive space colonies were arranged at the Lagrangian points, but more stunning was the artificial rings of mined out asteroids that had been used to fuel human development, that had fueled the houses rise to power.

"Seventy years have passed, nephew, since we banished the nay sayers into the void," and that was true in more ways than one. "by developing faster than light travel." That development had sparked the most massive human population boom in history. The now powerful houses who had pioneered the development of space technology, and colonization had financed hundreds of colony ventures, and now they were reaping the rewards. They had pressed forward development of space, and fusion technology, and then the implementation and further development of ftl.

"And you born when those same luddites thought such was a waste of time, and they are dead, and you are alive." That was another key point, the rich could afford bio treatments to extend their life, especially as technology continued to develop. Space colonization was popular because it was a whole new adventure. Preservationist ideology had begun to fall to the wayside as they began to die out, or was helped along, and colonization continued in force. "Besides the Citadel has a difficult enough time keeping their own affairs in order."

"The Empress has invited the council to tea, to hear our report of the domain, which is sheltered by the Dragon of the Chrysanthemum Throne" The older Kurita remarked finally. To think two hundred years ago such as this would have all been shocking, not that Kurita Hayama remembered that, he'd been born in the early days of the advent of fusion power. By the time he had been a boy Japan had already been rearming, and in the start of a population boom. What Kurita Hayama remembered was the beginning of great prosperity, a prosperity for all. It was a prosperity he wanted to see continued. "We are greatly fortunate of course the Prothean Laboratory can answer the many questions we have about the facility on Mars and others."  
The younger man nodded, "Yes, that is so." and indeed it was. All the others might benefit from this, but Kurita was set to capitalize on studying the data with its subordinate Yamatetsu Megacorporation, well known for its specialization in biotechnology, and genetics, and likewise the Shiawase Megacorporation already lined up for access to the information. Whichever of the two Kuritan subordinate corporations produced results would be rewarded, potentially not just by the Great House, but by the Empress.

-Scene Break- Akuze

"Is it just me or are there a lot of Kuritans around?" Sheppard asked, it wasn't like there was anything bad with House Kurita, per se, but this was just odd. It wasn't so much they were all actually members of the family, but it was pretty clear who they worked for. It could have been worse, when he'd been recovering Blake had had some of his more fanatical troops, who had, strictly speaking, more cybernetics that was probably healthy.

One of the 2nd lieutenants turned, "You didn't hear sir? The Empress of Japan met with the house yesterday," He shrugged, at Sheppard's how do you know that look "I grew up in the bay area, its got a significant population of dual citizens, you know, I like to watch home's news." He admitted a little shyly.

Dual citizenship wasn't as big of a deal these days of course. An Alliance Nation was Alliance, and that was that for the most part, but regional politics still mattered, and so did culture, and those were the important things. The Empress was a major deal for the Japanese and her colonies, even if House Kurita was more visible portion of international relations.

Politics... but still important."Duly noted, so what's this about?"  
"Hell if I know sir," The new guy responded, "they're brining in an orbital colony though."

Sheppard's brain shut down for a few minutes... they were bringing a colony... into orbit... of what had practically been a warzone. Well that once again proved that HIGHCOM was fucking insane as all get out. "Its not populated is it?"  
"Basic colony, sir. Estimated population one hundred sixty thousand, or thats scuttlebut at least." The younger soldier responded, "I can check though sir, but thats what I heard."  
Sheppard shrugged, "No it's fine. I'll look into it later." Hopefully there had been some kind of miscommunication, and what they were calling a colony was actually just one of the converted O'neill cylinders the military liked to remodel, or commision for themselves, for mobile bases.

As it turned out all evidence was pointing to it very much not being a military O'neill cylinder that was coming, but, as feared, an actual civilian colony according to most people. That wasn't good the small fleet in orbit was minimal, it was as if Alliance High Command wanted someone to try something. A carrier, and a Clan Battleship plus associate ships wasn't enough if they were bringing in a colony this didn't make any sense what so ever.

The doctrine of Humanity's Polities differed greatly from that of the Citadel. Simply put at anything closer than tens of thousands kilometers humanity would win simply due to directed energy weapons. Naval Particle Projector Cannons, and Capital Ship Lasers of varying types were effective even at eight thousand kilometers against human designed ablative armor, which in itself was superior to Citadel material science. The primary issue with this was that primary mass effect cannons, spinal mounted railguns, had ranges far in excess of the common directed energy weapons found on human fleets, and still managed, in the case of what the Citadel translated as Dreadnoughts, to hit with nuclear level yields. Most combat according to Citadel naval doctrine was based on keeping the enemy at a distance. There in was the issue of course FtL differences, a human fleet could charge their FtL drive and drop frigates on top of enemy combatants, or do worse. It had been part of the reason that the Turian Hierachy Fleet Command had considered an upgrade program to their interception systems.

High above Eden Prime Vizier contemplated the situation. The massive living biomechanical vessel was effectively invisible. Infrared sensors wouldn't detect it as heat sinks carefully absorbed and carefully disappated heat, not that it would matter. The living ship had no interest in fighting but short of the Naval Particle Projector Cannons its own plasma based shielding could hypothetically shrug off most of the fire of the fleet for a few minutes at absurdly, stupidly, close range. The 'eyes' as most sentients would describe them that dotted the ship's hull were in fact dozens and dozens of Free Electron Laser arrays, which were easily capable of totally bypassing Kinetic Barriers with trivial ease.

That in was the problem Human's relied on Kinetic Barriers because they were an easily reproducable technology, even while they worked towards designing effect energy based shields. And they were progressing, Vizier noted amused, the Rommel's shields were energy hungry but would absorb directed energy weapons as well as kinetic energy bombardment. True it was a primitive system, and slightly familiar, but it was a good first step.

The Reaper in question of course was more interested in other things. Monitoring the Citadel races was easy, seeing as they relied on the Mass Effect Relays themselves for most of their FtL, making it very easy to eavsdrop as it were. These 'Turians' were so thorough it was greatly useful to his inquiries, and so easy to get access to their databanks. That they considered the 'humans', as they called themselves, 'friends' was a distinct plus most the information that Vizier wanted was readily accessible, well most the information... there was positively nothing on those filthy heathens, that he didn't already know, the called Protheans, less than he already knew really. Still he had some of what he wanted, and a chance to insure the 'universe was restored to its proper social order' as some of the collective would put it. So fortunate that the 'Turians' weren't still at war with the 'humans', for the Turians. If Reapers could smile, well it would be a bad sign indeed, and terrible thing to behold. The only that would make this better, for the Reaper, was if the Prothean's bastardized version of the Artificial Biotic Soldier Population hadn't reached maturity, and wasn't in a position of power amongst the spacefaring younger races.

Down below on the surface of the planet Sheppard twitched. He'd have been concerned about any remaining Thresher Maws, but there were tanks galore now, and extensive seismec sensors up and running ensuring the safety of the surounding region. Humanity did not want a repeat of a few weeks ago. The additional security prescence wasn't enough, not if they really were going to keep moving in all these science units. Even counting the unit of Alliance Army Corp of Engineers, the unit in question originating out of Japan, the prescence was less than imposing... not that Sheppard expected something like Cameron's Royal Guard, or something... like that would happen House Cameron's worlds were well and far away from any potential danger the chance of Aliens daring to set foot on them was the same as them committing ritual suicide as soon as entering the systems in question.

Sheppard shook his head, orders had still loosened up after the last few days so officially he was off duty for the time being. Other than the medical check up today he had nothing to do today, so he might as well head off and find out what was going on.

Scene Break - Citadel

Humanity had been 'in space' for more than two centuries. It was the first half of the twenty first century where widespread space travel actually became commonplace, and colonization of Mars, and other bodies in the solar system along with space colonies began to take shape. In the last seventy five years the new revolution had been of course the discovery of Faster than Light technology, first with the human developed KF drive, and then with Mass Reduction technology. In this three quarters of a century humanity had shifted from colonization of its own solar system, to wide spread extrasolar colonization. Even greater than the space colonization boom the population growth as a result of extra solar colonization was immense.

Immense colonization drives were organized, primarily by the Great Houses, several times a generation, every generation in order to settle the many terraformed worlds that were surrounding Sol. The Citadel Races with the relative static stasis of their space meant their populations rarely underwent any major population growth except when a new species joined, and that was short lived lasting up until the species acclimated to the galactic community. Batarians were the only other race coming close to having a similiar population "issue", which was outstripped by humanity because of the drive to colonize the terraformed worlds within reach of Sol.

While the Citadel was larger, and better protected, due to the alien material it was constructed out of, which human and Citadel race alike had yet to figure out, than human space colonies it had a fraction of the population for its size. It was of course also stupidly easy to hide things, and that was coming to bite them all in the ass. The Batarians were the real issue right now though.

Guns thundered, the screaming roars of railguns' as they propelled rounds past hypersonic velocity, across the Presidium, as did the occasional explosion from man launched rockets. "Ambassador, please follow us."

Kurita Shin smiled slightly as his heads up display fed hiim the new information. "Ah please excuse me detective there seems to be little need now, thank you." For a moment the older Turian detective and his partner were confused. This lasted only long enough for their thermal sensors to detect something amiss and catch red flashes burning through the air. Senior detective Vakarian's manibles twitched as the admiral continued, "So good of your elevators to have designed for such heavy lifts, no?" The human remarked, and the older Turian nodded.

"Whats going on, sir?" His younger partner asked.

"Clanners," Was the single word utterance as Vakarian dropped back behind cover after firing another burst in the direction of the batarian terrorists.

"What, which clan of humans? What does it matter right now? I'm all for more help-," Shin pulled the rookie detective down as the ground thundered.

"This is a slighty different," He remarked, ignoring the shaking of the ground as a twelve foot tall suit of armor crushed a sign. He missed the human's name, as the leader of the Elementals declared himself a colonel of the Red Hawk clan, but let it slide since the human's had probably caught it.

A batarian was reduced to paste as another massive suit of armor came crashing down on the terrorists' impromptu cover. "under the direction of Khan Liam Arthur, commander of Argosia, all batarians are summarily labeled Black Caste, reinforce security personel."

Vakarian bit back an angry complaint, as apparently reinforced, meant firing freaking laser beams across the Presidium. It did have the desired effect as the large power armors suit mounted lasers, were joined by a fifth elemental unleashing a flurring of guided submunitions as the lead elemental fell back to the human embassy staff's position.

The Colonel ignored the Ambassador turning to face the Kuritan Admiral. "Admiral, my Khan demands you withdraw with al ldiplomatic personel to the carrier with all possible haste."

Vakarian let his heat sinks do their job after taking another pot shot at one of the batarian positions, finally some sense, but he had enough time politicing to know not to say that. "With respect admiral thats probably for the best, the Batarians won't be able to get through headquarters, that'll insure all diplomatic personel are safe until we can transfer you to the Clan Capital ship."

Aboard aforementioned Red Hawk Carrier Khan Liam Arthur was not pleased, and a nearly two meter tall clan khan not being happy was an immensely bad thing... being a 'crusader' did not fucking help at all the situation. He'd expected a peaceful visit to the Citadel, and instead his third day in 'port' and those filthy black caste had attacked, what was this nonsense exactly. He wished for more human ships, filled with good honorable men, and women, and many stars of elemental heavy infantry, that would solve this so well. Even so, bad situation or not, calling for reinforcements was without any point, they were winning. The terrorists, while possessing a scattering of military grade arms, even then outdated, were loosing, and everyone knew it but the carnage wasn't the real issue it would be pulling aside the rubble, and rescuing the civilians. Of course that was Citadel Security's Job, but how many bombs had been placed was a more pressing concern.

"What do we know?"  
"Evidence indicates the armaments were definitely scattered in caches years ago, they're all at ten or twenty years old. The scattering of recent weapons we've identified are for the most part probably scavenged." The Clan Intelligence Officer remarked. "In any case Citadel Special Response are geared up, and deploying,"  
The Khan rumbled standing up, "And?"  
"They have asked us not to deploy any more troops."  
Of course they had, he snorted, "And what about the data?"  
The Intelligence officer smirked, "My subordinates, are already aboard the Citadel and will see its destroyed, my Khan, certainly before the Batarians can even think of accessing it."

"See to it that they do, this is all far to convienent for my liking."

Abruptly one of the communications officers stepped up. "My Khan, Council Spectres are deploying on the Citadel." Well that meant things had just gotten worse,

"Do we know which ones?" Really that was the question, not that it really meant anything, Spectres were much to annoying to begin with, especially since they were already on Citadel territory. Still if fortune favored them a more amiable spectre might have the good sense to stay out of their way.

-Chapter conclusion-

Helltanz's notes: Happy Samhain all, the events of the game are still a while off, and as you can see this will diverge quite a ways from canon. The Batarians have some trouble to look forward too, and the Protheans were busy little bees. Then of course there is Earth, and we see some more diversity in the future.

I'll be, eventually adding the background information to the wiki, I can't believe still I was convinced to actually make one in the first place, but once its up it'll be a decent resource I think.


End file.
